Some beautiful, if that's the right word. Knifes there real work's of art. It's normally some throw away cheap piece of rubbish kitchen knife that's used by criminals and the insane. When I nursed I saw mostly steak knife sized blades concealed in clothing, with a card board sheath. Cheapo folders, penknife's and very crude shanks made on the nut ward, a sharpened key melted onto a bit of plastic or a nail with a cloth binding.

Interestingly last night I was watching a news show and they presented a segment called "Lockup" where they interview prisoners and guards in various institutions-they showed a lot of footage of prison yard fights and you can see when a knife is used in a riot there is no just stab like is practised in many martial defense school-more like repeated overhead repeated vicious stabbings as they charge forward-so my question is-how come the instructors in the schools do not review and work on this type defense but just practise only a one time thrust?I have been attempting to wok on this-very hard-seems i would be cut repeatedly-need to work on this -any thoghts here? WW

There's no standard knife attack, however if the guy stab's and misses you often see alot of slashing. I prison it's almost always a surprise attack from behind if possable. Safest for the attacker and most dangerous for the target. Plenty of You Tube clips on prison shanks. Watch the Troy Kell prison knife attack for an insight into pure evil.

As mentioned there is no single standard knife attack but statistically there are 3 types of attacks- the wild overhead, the piston-type power stab, and the wild slashing attack, or a combination thereof. These are obviously covered by Hock, especially during the practice of the clock drills. Anyone training for real knife attacks will work with and against these types of attacks. However, beginners may be introduced to knife attacks with slower single attacks until they have developed some skill. Then they should be introduced to more realistic attacks. The key is to make this transition from single attacks to realistic attacks as quickly as possible without overwhelming the student.

Let me clarify my statement that there is no single standard knife attack. What people tend to do in real life is often a spur of the moment thing. People especially the mentally ill are unpredictable. We see hooking type knife strikes to the neck on You Tube, also upward stabbing attack's with the blade held point high but driven from the waist. I agree totally that it is vital to train for overhead, straight line attack's etc, but the key is to be flexible and expect the unexpected. All training increases awareness and that's half the battle won.

There was an old video of Dan Inansanto demonstrating the"21ft" rule. I forget the guys name the rule is named after. Anyway, he just rushed in stabbing. Basically, it was indefensible. IMHO the thing missing from empty hand vs the knife work is the balance disruption a committed knifer causes when attacking. We use to train this type of attack and would just shake our heads and admit there is no way to train for such an attack. You just try to survive. But attacks like these are pretty much assassinations. There is value training but not against this type of attacker.

There was an old video of Dan Inansanto demonstrating the"21ft" rule. I forget the guys name the rule is named after. Anyway, he just rushed in stabbing. Basically, it was indefensible. IMHO the thing missing from empty hand vs the knife work is the balance disruption a committed knifer causes when attacking. We use to train this type of attack and would just shake our heads and admit there is no way to train for such an attack. You just try to survive. But attacks like these are pretty much assassinations. There is value training but not against this type of attacker.

What you are describing is the "Tueller Drill" and it's far from indefensible. The point of this simple procedure is to demonstrate an officer's ability or inability to deploy a holstered sidearm and shoot a rushing attacker armed with a knife, when said attacker is within 21 feet. The point is to help officers understand that they should be moving offline of the attack while bringing the sidearm into play. This can also help officers understand that they have other options available to them, such as environemental objects and empty hand tactics (tactics that Canuk mentioned) so that they don't become so gun-focused that they allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the attacker. While this procedure is known as a drill it's actually just a useful demonstration of reaction versus action. It's also a good way for students to see how fast an attacker can close the gap between themselves and their inteded target. With the proper training it's not difficult to defend against. The key is obviously training realistically.

The Old Video mentioned was called '' Surviving Edged Weapons '', produced in the early 80's by Calibre Press. It was designed as a training tape for LEO. It is really excellent if you can get a hold of a copy, do so !

The Old Video mentioned was called '' Surviving Edged Weapons '', produced in the early 80's by Calibre Press. It was designed as a training tape for LEO. It is really excellent if you can get a hold of a copy, do so !

Glad you brought that up as I still have it. But since I bought it while doing MP duties back in 2000, it is in VHS format and I still have a couple of finely tuned VCRs. Still an excellent training video to this day. Even though it is geared for cops/corrections officers, it contains valuable information that can also cater to the defense-minded citizen. I also have "Hostage Officer Survival" which is also another video from Calibre Press and is a compliment to it.

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"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.""A citizen is armed and free while a subject is disarmed and under control.""An armed society is a polite society.""Keep your friends close and your enemies closer"-Sun Tzu"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"-Mike Tyson